Quotes

[in a 1974 interview] My motive is quite simple. I want to be able to continue to earn a decent living and earn the respect of the people I work with. I'm a positive thinker. I don't panic, I don't scare. I've seen lots of brilliant actors go under because they panicked, got scared and ran. I'm hard to scare. I'm pleased with myself as an actor and as a human being. If you work hard, you get things and you don't have to thank everyone, although I feel I owe much to Joseph Cotten and his late wife Lenore, Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne and to Preston Sturges, the very inventive director who died several years ago. If you want to last in this business, you have to give a lot. You can't just take. And you have to have an agent who really cares, and who works for you, like I have.

I always tried to play villains like the heroes. Vincent Price was always playing boogieman things, overdoing stuff, and I was like, "Jesus, Vincent, for once just play it straight." I mean, I played Count Yorga straight, I played "Deathmaster" straight. But Vincent's mannerisms took him over. As an actor you should never allow that to happen. The best villains are the ones who are both protagonist and antagonist.

[on portraying Count Yorga] I enjoyed playing Yorga. The fun of making movies is the fun of getting outside yourself. I had been playing heavies all my life, but they were more real--just with or without a mustache. So it was fun to use some of the--what I hope were--skills I had developed by this time.